1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing system capable of stacking printed material from a printing apparatus to a stacking portion of a post-processing apparatus, and a job processing method and storage medium for the printing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Traditionally, there have been cases wherein an operator of a POD (Print on Demand) system performs large amounts of printing employing a printing apparatus. In the case of performing large amounts of printing employing a printing apparatus, stacking the printed sheets at a specified discharge destination in large amounts is desirable. Therefore, with the POD system, a large-capacity stacker may be employed which can stack the sheets printed with the printing apparatus in large amounts.
Also, with a POD system, post-processing operations such as binding, trimming, and folding are typically necessary, such post-processing operations may be performed at a sheet processing apparatus corresponding to the respective post-processing. However, with a POD system, the printing apparatus and sheet processing apparatus may be in separate locations. In such a case, the operator needs to transport the sheets printed with the printing apparatus to the sheet processing apparatus.
Thus, with a POD system, a cart may be provided within a large-capacity stacker serving as the discharge destination of the sheets subjected to printing at the printing apparatus, and the printing apparatus stacks the sheets subjected to printing upon the cart. After this, an operator transports the printed sheets stacked on the cart, along with the cart. With this method, moving the sheets from the large-capacity stacker or transporting the sheets to the sheet processing apparatuses can be performed smoothly.
On the other hand, in the event of discharging the sheets subjected to printing to the sheet processing apparatuses, processing is performed to cause the discharge positions of the sheets subjected to printing to be in a state shifted as to one another in increments of a fixed unit (for example, by each job or each copy). Thus, the operator can easily recognize the division of the sheet bundles by job or by copy.
This processing is an effective function for a large-capacity stacker, but as described above, in the case of a large-capacity stacker, transporting with a cart is assumed, wherein stability of the stacked sheets is particularly important. The reason thereof is that if the stacked sheets fall over from shaking during transporting or shock due to uneven flooring or the like, this places a burden on the operator responsible for picking up the scattered sheets.